The girl sat between Lonergan and Lombard at a round table near the fireplace. Sawtell was in another chair a little distant, keeping one eye on a red-hot poker in the coals, the other on two bound men on the floor. Vince was whimpering like a beaten cur, while Penny looked at him with disgust evident in her face.
"I won't never ferget this, Cousin Penny, honest tuh God I won't," said Vince. "As sure as hell yer savin' us from havin' our eyes burned out with that poker."
"I haven't signed this agreement yet," the girl replied.
"But yuh will, you've got tuh, yuh know blamed well that Uncle Bryant is waitin' fer Sawtell tuh take it to him in Red Oak. Hurry up an' sign it."
Lonergan dipped a pen in a bottle of ink and held it toward the girl.
"Here you are," he said suavely, as he pointed to a line at the bottom of a long page of close writing. "Sign right there beneath the others and then we'll sign as witnesses."
Penelope took the pen and tapped the un-inked end meditatively against her small, even teeth.
"Just let me get everything straight," she said. "In the first place, if Uncle Bryant doesn't want to leave his property to us, he doesn't need to. He can make a will, can't he?"
Lonergan nodded and glanced at Sawtell.